Great Britain's Jess Varnish, left, and Becky James after their win in the team sprint at the UCI Track World Cup. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

Great Britain christened the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in fine style on Friday night, with a little blood mixed in with the sweat and the tears. The new track that will host the 2014 Commonwealth Games is on London Road, which seems only appropriate, because although this is clearly a team that has begun rebuilding en route to Rio, events in the capital in August will loom large throughout the next three and a half years. There was a little hint of the roars that echoed round the Pringle in those heady days as Becky James and Jess Varnish in the team sprint and Dani King, Laura Trott and the newcomer Elinor Barker kicked off proceedings with a brace of gold medals.

Varnish and James are a new pairing, with the young Welsh woman taking over from the peerless Victoria Pendleton, now of Strictly Come Dancing, but they came here with a World Cup win under their belt this season in the opening round in Colombia and they continued where they had left off with a seamless victory over Spain to cement their status as leaders in the standings. They qualified fastest and then geared a little higher for the final – "Why not try something new?" said a smiling James afterwards – and, although in the final Varnish went a little slower in her opening lap, she provided the perfect delivery for her partner.

The team sprinters' task was straightforward compared with the mountain in front of Trott, King and Barker, the junior world time trial champion on the road in September and a late inclusion in place of the London gold medallist Joanna Rowsell. In qualifying they had finished second to Australia, well within reach, but only after a shambolic performance in which King had pushed herself too hard, taking a longer turn than necessary and then failing to recover in time to hold the wheel of Trott. The trio finished in disarray, with Trott several lengths clear at one point and having to throttle back in order to enable her team-mates to catch up before the finish line.

As Trott pointed out, this was their first ride over the distance as a trio. But even so there was work to do. They "made some adjustments", switching Barker and Trott to longer turns and King to shorter ones, and the final was a very different business, with Trott imperious, Barker punching well above her weight – she was riding 10 seconds faster than her previous personal best – and King clearly determined to make amends.

They fell behind the Australian trio at the off, pulled back to lead in the second kilometre, then held off their rivals to the finish, with the crowd on their feet. It was rousing stuff and a fine debut in particular for Barker, who had taken time out from her A-level studies – biology and PE – to be here this week. It bodes well for the future, when this event will expand to be on a par with the men's at 4,000m and four riders.

The most keenly awaited debut, however, was that of a seasoned campaigner – Ed Clancy's first attempt at a team sprint as he makes the transition from four riders over four kilometres to three men over three laps. He feared, not unreasonably, that the Olympic gold medallists Philip Hindes and Jason Kenny might leave him behind at the start. "I was worried I would spend the three laps on my own," he said, but his nerves were groundless. In both qualifying and the final he did not look out of place, although his nose-down style as he follows Kenny's wheel in the man-three position still has more of the endurance rider than the sprinter about it.

The trio qualified second fastest to the German trio of Stefan Boetticher, Robert Förstemann and Rene Enders, and the result was repeated in the final, but it was enough to give Clancy confidence as he attempts to switch to this discipline and the kilometre time trial at the world championships in Minsk next February. "My thoughts changed from how not to make a fool of myself [in qualifying] to 'how can we win this?'" he said. "It's a start."